Paper long abstract:

The question of how to deal with coastal erosion now and in the future has been put on many political agendas. Anticipated effects of climate change and ongoing coastal development booms increase coastal hazard risk worldwide. As natural processes and human actions intersect and possibly collide in the limited space of the coast, the ensuing coastal hazard risk is always a socionatural phenomenon.

'Working with nature' (and not against is) provides a new collective vision about coastal protection, questioning the sole dependence on structural approaches of hard engineering in favour of so-called soft measures. A community of coastal management practitioners tries to push this sociotechnical imaginary (Jasanoff and Kim 2009, 2013), promoting dune restoration, artificial reefs and other techniques that claim to work with natural coastal processes.

While being sympathetic with these ideas, from the analytical standpoint it seems necessary to add another layer of complexity, and to problematize this reference to "capital-N Nature" (Hinchliffe 2007:3; Tsing 2005: 88f.; Castree 2005: 8). As others have argued (eg. Hinchliffe 2007: 188), the concept of an abstract singular Nature has lost its power as a normative grounding. Instead, nature needs to be thought of as multiple, brought about in and through practices. But can such theory-led attempts to achieve a more complex understand of nature, environment and biodiversity be translated back to the community of practice that tries to speak for Nature, and uses Nature as a means to make their case against unsustainable practices of coastal protection?